When it comes to parenting, there are two very distinct ways that it can be viewed. There’s the romanticised, idealistic view; and there’s the much more realistic, real-life way.
The first, is our dream view of how we are, or want to be, as parents. That’s the view where we see ourselves with that grinning, wonderfully dressed child, in a spotlessly clean house after we’ve read them three stories, taught them German and prepared the greenest, healthiest meal we can make. Then there’s the version that we’re actually more accustom to. One where they’re screaming, the house is an utter disgrace and we’re looking at the alcohol wondering why we haven’t started drinking it yet.
My point here, is that I hold some romanticised views on parenting for when Isabelle is older. But I’m under the impression that many of them will be shattered like most of the others have. One of those, involves technology, and more importantly, the dreaded screen time.
This Brings Me Around to the KidloLand App
What is Kidloland? It’s an app that offers interactive play via nursery rhymes, songs, stories, and other activities for kids. There is an awful lot on this app to keep your child entertained, engaged, and most certainly distracted whilst at least trying to educate them. Whilst I have my doubts about the effectiveness of apps like this to teach children, studies have shown that the more interactive the app, the more a child will actually learn. And fortunately, this app is rather interactive, even at quite a micro level.
Virtually every moment of this app feels like there is some engagement to be had. Even during the stories you can simply tap parts to do something simple like change colours, move something or of course move the story along.
You’re child will likely find hours of play with this app with the 95+ nursery rhymes, games and all the learning activities. The good thing is, they won’t run out of things to do for quite a while!
My Issue With the KidloLand App
The first thing you will notice with this app is the amount of memory it takes up. If you’re anything like me, and if you have a young child then chances are that you will be, then you probably don’t have a lot of room on your phone or tablet.
Every time a new game, story, song or anything else is loaded, it is downloaded to the app and can take up anything up to 12MB and above. As you can imagine, it won’t take long before your phone starts filling up and you have to go around deleting stuff. Of course, it’s not actually that much of an issue as you can just go into the downloaded section and delete stuff. It’s actually quite simple really.
My issue with KidloLand isn’t necessarily the app itself. What it offers is in fact rather good. It’s just that I don’t 100% agree with the concept of children learning via apps. I prefer a much more hands on approach, one where they learn most of what they learn directly through the parent, or just a human in general.
I’ll admit, that I’m still in that idyllic stage where my concepts of parenting haven’t been viciously tested by a gruelling, over bearing toddler. When I get to that stage, there may be a strong chance that I resort to an app like this as a form of distraction. Anything to give you a moment of peace with the added benefit of potentially being educational.
Summary
In all honesty, at this stage of my parenting journey, I’m not fully on board with allowing a child too much time with devices. But I also understand it’s going to be an integral, unavoidable part of every day life for Isabelle. It is with mine, as much as I dislike that fact, and it’ll be the same for her.
She’s also only 8 months old, so this app isn’t technically suitable for her anyway. So perhaps you should take most of what I say with a pinch of salt.
But if she is going to use devices and games, I’d rather her use something that’s at least educational. And I might just end up using something like KidloLand for that very need. Overall though, I give this app a 3/5. For what it is, it’s decent enough, but you do also have to pay £3.99 per month to use all of the apps features. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but that’s still almost £48 a year for an app that is mostly going to be used as a distraction with the added benefit of possibly being educational. And sometimes, I’m pretty tight.
If you want to download the KidloLand app then you can in the following places:
iOS: KidloLand: Kids Nursery Rhymes
Google Play: Nursery Rhymes, Kids Games, ABC Phonics, Preschool
Amazon Appstore: Nursery Rhymes, ABC Songs – KidloLand
Also, if you want to read more of my reviews, then you can do so here.
*Disclaimer* – I was sent this item in exchange for this review. But the opinions are entirely my own.
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